I think the answer lies in the soil - FT.com
Back in 2000 and 2001, Aimé Guibert of Mas de Daumas Gassac and the Mondavi family famously battled over a few morsels of Languedoc hillside. The spat is now historical, though the dying embers of acrimony received a final glow when Jonathan Nossiter ventilated them in his 2004 documentary film Mondovino. It seemed to be a tale of local protectionism (Guibert) fending off, via beguiling rhetoric, a company bent on exploiting virgin native scrub for a global marketing opportunity (Mondavi). Neither side emerged bathed in glory.
